Fresh fruit imports into the EU last year fell significantly in both volume and value terms, trade body Freshfel Europe has confirmed.
Basing its statistics on Eurostat data, the Brussels-based body found that volumes fell by 7.1 per cent on 2008, while values were also down, by 5.8 per cent.
The picture for vegetables was more stable, with a 0.45 per cent volume increase and a 1.5 per cent value rise.
Freshfel Europe president Ramón Rey said: “This data confirms the careful approach of EU importers in a year with a complex market situation, low prices on the EU market and stagnating consumption.”
Bananas remained by far the most imported fruit in 2009, with more than 4.5 million tonnes, but the volume was down by 7.5 per cent on 2008.
Pineapples ranked second, with close to 880,000t imported into the EU.
Rey said: “Altogether, tropical fruit imports account for more than half of total fresh fruit imports, leaving the total volume of non-tropical imported products to represent around 14 per cent of total consumption on the EU market.”
Other large fruit category imports were oranges, apples, grapes, grapefruit and pears.
The EU’s main trading partners for fruit imports in 2009 remained the banana suppliers, led by Costa Rica, which accounted for 13.4 per cent of overall volume, followed by Ecuador (12.4 per cent) and Colombia (11.2 per cent). Next came South Africa (9.6 per cent) and Chile (six per cent).
Vegetable imports were dominated by sendings from Morocco, which accounted for 33.2 per cent of overall volume in 2009, followed by Turkey (15 per cent), Israel (11 per cent) and Egypt (5.1 per cent).
